


Accidental Knowledge

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [147]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Affection, Feelings Realization, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 17:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16045295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Tony discovers he likes hearing Steve sayplease.





	Accidental Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: [THIS](http://colonelrogers.tumblr.com/image/178247893826).

The knowledge you come by accidentally is always the most dangerous. Tony should know that; it’s kind of defined his life. The best discoveries, one of his profs at MIT used to say, tend to show up when you’re not looking--a philosophy that Tony may have used to justify a few really good years of hard partying: what better way not to look than to have an increasingly large part of your brain semi-permanently switched off? Keeping the tray tables in his head in the upright positions took too much damn energy; better (younger him had thought) to drink and fuck and really give the really genius ideas plenty of dark and quiet to grow.

Yeah, he knows. That was bullshit. But younger him had a remarkable ability to justify some pretty spectacularly bad decision-making. He kind of deserves a PhD in how to very nearly ruin your life and yet find a way to walk away relatively unscathed.

It’s only when he’s older and he’s let his brain depickle and he starts saving the world for a living that he can appreciate what his prof was trying to say: you gotta be in the room, in the headspace, for ideas to form, but sometimes, they’re like ghosts and you have to turn your back, shift gears onto something else for a while, so the ideas will feel safe to appear. No good staring at a kettle and cursing it not to boil; you have to trust that it will, sometimes, and just look away.

He doesn’t realize that’s what he’s doing with Steve, though, until it’s well and truly too late.

The first time there’s a twinge, they’re eating breakfast for dinner one night, fresh off the jet from smoking out a big HYDRA nest in Toronto of all places. Toronto! The Canadians are supposed to be nice. Reasonable people who drink beer and watch hockey and eat Timbits while reveling in their universal health care. How could anybody that grows up in all that ever get down with being part of an international big bad?

Tony’s kind of shaken about it, is all.

But the upside is that they’re having pancakes because Barton’s obsessed with real maple syrup and having brought some home _sans_ Customs, he insists on making from scratch pancakes, not the everyday Bisquick kind, and bullies everybody into washing up and then coming back down to watch the master chef at work. Maybe it’s the hour, maybe everybody was as let down by Timbits as Tony, but there’s no argument, no half-hearted protests. Everybody’s all in.

By the time Tony dumps his tech and jumps in and out of the shower, Cap and Banner are elbows in. Thor’s eating each pancake like a crepe, with a fork and a knife and these small, dainty bites, and Nat’s smothering hers in a layer of syrup a quarter inch thick.

“What?” she says when Tony raises an eyebrow. “I like them sweet.”

Tony gives his own a more delicate turn--a drizzle instead of downpour--and goes to town. He doesn’t realize how hungry he is until his first bite and then, it’s like a dang powerhouse; he eats five of the things in under a minute and then he’s in some weird sugar fugue state, his mouth as happy as it’s been in ages. God, pancakes and bacon and coffee. Is there any finer nectar of the gods?

“Hey, Tony,” Steve says, “would you pass the syrup?”

Tony mock moans and wraps his arms around the bottle, tugs it towards his chest. “No. We’re very happy. We’re getting married. I’ll send you an invitation.”

He can feel the disapproving Cap stare. “Tony.”

“What? I can’t help it if our love is unconventional. The wedding night is definitely gonna be awkward. But what the heart wants, the heart gets, eh?”

He looks up and Steve is kind of smiling. He looks like he doesn’t _want_ to be, but his face is doing it anyway. It’s a not a bad look for everybody’s favorite Octogenarian.

“Stark,” he says, extending his hand towards Tony’s side of the table, “come on. May I have it?”

Nat smacks him on the arm. “Tone,” she says, “give it to him all ready.”

But Tony’s feeling the devil, or maybe the devil’s feeling him, because he shakes his head at Steve and says: “Ah, ah. What’s the magic word, Mr. Rogers?”

Thor looks alarmed. “No magic at the dinner table, I beg you, friends.”

“Please,” Steve says, through that same not smile. “Tony, may I please have the syrup?”

“Yes,” Tony says primly, a pleasant little zip in his chest. “Thank you. Yes, sir. You may.”

It’s only later as he’s jerking off, rounding the bases for home, that it strikes him how rare it is for Steve to ask for something. He’s always Emily Post polite when he’s not punching somebody for justice--saying thank you and holding doors and when he’s really wound up, calling everybody sir and ma’am--but Tony could count on one currently occupied hand how many times he’s heard Cap say that word, _please_. Has he ever aimed it in Tony’s direction before? God, maybe, but Steve’s never looked right at him at he said it, never had such a sticky sweet mouth when he did, and oh, fuck--

Tony turns his face into his pillow, panting, his fingers a hot mess, his belly, and as his balls jerk it out, he feels too good to freak out about it, getting off so hard on just one word from Steve Rogers’ mouth.

No big deal, he tells himself. Just your body blowing off steam. Like that inexplicable dream you had about Barton in fishnets. It was just a weird, one-time thing.

And it is. Until it isn’t.  


*****  


The next time, they’re in the ring--or on the mat, whatever--working through some combat moves Cap’s decreed the whole team should learn, no argument, no quarter. They’ve been going at it for an hour and Tony is drained, his legs like wet noodles, and Steve’s insisting they run through it again.

“You’ve got it now,” Steve says. “I could see it in that last run. One more take and I promise, it’ll be locked into your muscle memory.”

“Ugh,” Tony wheezes from the floor, his eyes drowning in the overhead lights. “Fuck you. No.”

Cap makes an irritated noise and stands over Tony, his broad shoulders threatening an eclipse. “You’re right there, though. One more round and you’ll have it.”

“One more round and I won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”

“I seriously doubt it’s that bad.”

“Man, you’re built for this stuff. Like, literally. Some of us are just regular human types here.”

Steve’s stance shifts a little. His body loosens and he loses the rigid, the way he stands that makes him look like a tin man. “Please, Tony,” he says. “Trust me. One more time.”

Oh, no. Oh, god. Why is Tony sitting up? Why is he making an actual effort to stand?

“Fine,” he says. “Since you asked so nicely.”

Steve steps back, grinning, gives Tony some room to move. “Is that all I have to do?”

“Apparently,” Tony grumbles as he struggles to his feet, the tips of his ears going red, his cock all at once perked up and paying some super unhelpful attention. “Now shut up and try to punch me already.”

He’d too tired to get hard, thank God, but that doesn’t stop his brain from celebrating, from sending him all kinds of stupid signals that boil down to _get him to say it again_.

It gets worse after that.

Steve starts short circuiting their usual arguments with his new magic power, starts cutting Tony’s outrage or anger or very legitimate questions, thank you, neatly off at the pass.

Like when Tony interrupts Steve during a briefing to point out how tactically dumb their plan is, Steve takes to saying things like: “Tony, please. Let me finish outlining this and then we can discuss it, all right?” And Tony takes to flushing red and bobbing his head and letting Steve make his point, which by the end, Tony usually can see the merits of, even if he might’ve chosen a different path.

“Is it me,” Nat says after once such occasion, “or are you two actually getting along?”

“Oh,” Tony says, “I don’t--”

“And by getting along, I mean, are you agreeing to every damn thing that comes out of Steve’s mouth?”

Tony’s cheeks suddenly plunge towards plum. “Um--”

Nat slaps him on the shoulder. “Yeah,” she says with a smirk. “That’s what I thought.”  


*****  


And then one night, Tony bumbles downstairs at 2 AM looking for a cold beer and runs into Steve sitting in the dark, staring down at the city.

“Hey, soldier,” Tony says. “You need a beer?”

Steve doesn’t look at him. “Yeah, please. For all the good it’ll do me.”

Tony swallows a shiver and hands over his and goes back for another, winds up again at Steve’s side. “You, ah. You want to talk about it?”

“About what?” Steve’s voice is brittle, like aging paper. His shoulders are slumped and there’s a sadness to him, a sort of grief, that Tony’s never seen before. It’s not that Steve’s always smiling or Steve’s always on--there’ve been plenty of times Tony’s watched him grow quiet, or noticed him drifting away--but the weight of whatever this is feels different. Even if he can’t really see Steve’s face.

“About whatever’s bothering you this bad.”

Steve takes a pull. Thinks about it. “I’m missing somebody. A lot of somebodies, I guess. They, uh--they’ve been gone a long time, most of them. And none of them are coming back.” He tilts his face up and Tony catches sight of his mouth, a thin, unhappy line. “It’s a fact, a fundamental that never changes, and most of the time, I can deal with it. Wrap my head around it, you know. But some nights, when it’s quiet like this, their voices get a lot louder. All the memories and stuff, you know?”

There are times--ok, 99% of them--when it’s easy to forget how young Steve is in the grand scheme of things. Yes, he was born when booze was illegal, when most people didn’t own cars, when the New Deal was actually new, but he went into the ice as not much more than a kid and he hasn’t been out all that long. Sure he’s built like a linebacker, but inside, he’s a marshmallow, an artist, a guy with a hell of a soul.

He’s a kid and he’s lonely, like he’s been packed off to college and cut off for always from his friends and if he comes off as an officious jerk sometimes, that’s not the only part of him. And sure as hell’s not the part that means the most, that makes him a great leader, a good man, somebody that Tony’s proud to think of as a friend.

So it only makes sense for Tony to pat him on the back, to rest a hand there and squeeze the brick wall of his shoulder, to pet gently at the sleep damp stretch of Steve’s neck.


End file.
